Jimdo Tip: Work on Your Website Without Disrupting Visitors

Tue21Apr2015

2015 · 2015-04 · tips

When a store or restaurant needs a makeover, you can cover up the windows. What do you do when you need the same thing for your website? Fortunately, there are a few easy ways to hide pages that
aren’t quite ready for the world to see.

1. Hide the page you’re working on from your navigation

If you’re simply adding or tweaking one page, you can hide it from your navigation so that people visiting your site won’t be presented with it as an option. When you’re done with your revisions,
poof, you can make it visible again.

Note: Hidden pages are still visible to someone with the direct link, such as yoursite.com/contact.

Here’s how you hide a page:

Move your cursor over your navigation bar and select Edit navigation. When the black box pops up, find the page you want to hide and click on the little eyeball icon next to it.
Click Save. For example, if you wanted hide your “Contact” page, here’s how you would do it:

Here's how to hide a page from your website navigation while you work on it.

To the outside world, the page is now hidden and doesn’t show up in your navigation anymore. To you, you’ll see it crossed out on your menu and you’ll still be able to edit it.

Once
you hide the page, this is how your menu will look when you're in Edit Mode. The crossed out item won't be visible to visitors.

Once you’re done making your changes, open up Edit navigation again, click on the eyeball again (thereby unhiding the page), hit Save, and your page is back online.

Hint: If you’re making changes to an important page that you can’t afford to have hidden, try making a copy. You can hide and work on the copy while the original page stays live
for your visitors. When you’re ready, delete the “original” and replace it with the updated page. Be sure to rename the copy with the original Page Title so that you don’t lose your URL.

2. Put your site in "Under Construction Mode"

Simply log in to your Jimdo website and go to Settings > Website > Under Construction Mode. Activate the Under Construction Mode by clicking the On button.

Once this is activated, you can choose to add a contact form so visitors are able to reach you while your site is offline. You can also customize the text that appears on your Under Construction
page.

Before you flip that switch, keep in mind that taking your site offline can have an impact on your SEO. If your site is brand new, you have nothing to worry about. But if you have an existing site
that's already appearing in search results, your ranking could take a hit if your site is offline for too long.

3. Create a password protected area

Since a hidden page can still be found if someone has the direct link, you might need something more secure to keep your page hidden. This is where password protection can come in handy.

Here’s how you do it:

In the Settings menu, go to Website > Password Protected Areas.

You can select which pages to apply password protection to.

You’ll be prompted to choose a password, and select the pages you want protected. Once you hit Save, any visitors will need the password to access those pages. When you’re done, go back into
“Password Protected Areas” in your Settings and just delete it. Read more about Password Protection in
our Support Center.

4. Create an “Under Construction” page

If you’re overhauling most of your site but you don't want to take it offline, you can hide all your pages and put up one large notification so that your visitors know what’s going on. That’s where
the "Under Construction" page can help.

Basically what you’ll do here is manually replace your homepage with an “Under Construction” page, so that when people visit your website address, they’ll see this notice rather than your site’s
regular content. Here’s an example:

An Under Construction page is a good option if you'll be performing major overhauls.

Here’s how you do this:

First, you’ll hide the pages that you don’t want anyone to see (as explained above in ‘Hide Pages You’re Working On’).

Once those pages are hidden, Click on Edit navigation and select Add a new Page.

Name this page “Under Construction.”

Move this page to the top of your navigation, above “Home.”

Once you create your Under Construction page, add a Text element and enter a message such as “We’re working on improving our website right now…” It’s good to give people a sense of when you’ll be
back online, and even provide a contact number or email if they have questions in the meantime.

When you’re done with your renovations, un-hide your normal pages and delete the Under Construction page by clicking on the trashcan icon.

5. Start your own JimdoFree test site

Most of our staff have their own Jimdo test sites. We use these to try out new features or experiment with different templates and elements. And there’s nothing to stop you from doing the same—in
fact, we encourage it.

First, sign up for a new JimdoFree site.
Once you’ve opened the site, you can choose the same template that you have on your “real” Jimdo site, and then you can experiment with moving around the elements, seeing how different fonts or
colors look, etc. It's not possible to automatically copy over your entire "real" website onto your test website, but you can manually upload important content to experiment with.

I recommend this method if you’re thinking of trying out an entirely new look for your site, but you’re not sure what you want quite yet. It's a nice, commitment-free way to try some
new techniques or templates. If you like what’s on your test site, you can implement it on your real site. If you don’t, no harm no foul—nothing on your real site has changed.

Note: If you simply want to preview new templates, you can do that on your "real" site. Use the Template Selector to quickly try out different templates—as long as you don't hit
"Save," everything on your site will stay the same.

With these five techniques, it’s very easy to try new things without the eyes of the world (or just your customers) upon you. If you have any questions on how to use these techniques, contact our Customer Support Team and they will walk you through it!

Maggie

Content Editor at Jimdo

Maggie joined the team to craft the voice of Jimdo for all products and marketing channels. In her previous work, she edited for organizations covering the environment, cities, and sustainable
business. When she's not adding serial commas, you can find her camping with her husband, cooking, and reading New Scientist.